Neighbours’ woodburner

[FlySwimmer]

Our neighbours had their woodburner going last night. We live in an estate, and we’re not even the closest house, yet last night our bedroom was full of smoke from only a small window open a crack. I could feel my eyes stinging, and this morning my throat is crackly. I don’t think I can stand this for a full autumn/winter! How would you approach it with the neighbours, ideally to reduce how often they use it, and to make sure they’re only using the approved fuel (maybe they are, but maybe they aren’t). Has anyone had any success in submitting a nuisance complaint to the council?

Is it a garden wood burner or their inside heating?

If the wood burner has passed building regs and you are not in a smokeless zone there is no hope ime of getting anything done unfortunately. I moved house

Full of smoke?

@Stripedbag101 it’s an inside burner. They have a chimney sticking out of their back living room.

They must be burning rubbish/wet logs, proper kiln dried logs don't smell like this.

We reported our arsehole of a neighbour. We live in a smoke free zone. Last winter our house constantly stunk of smoke. We can't use the garden - even walking to the car leaves us reeking of smoke (great for work 🙄). We've blocked up vents etc which is bad for our own old house that needs to breathe. We've replaced the door and window closest to the worst of the stench but he burns in two fireplaces - one at each end of the house so we're surrounded by smoke as our houses are back to back.

He got a letter from the council warning him that he'd been reported and we got a letter telling us to look out for smoke. I'm pretty sure there's a clause where Aga etc are excluded and it's the type of home that would have one. We've already had some thick smoke around so will have to see how it goes over winter.

We 100% know he's not burning kiln dried logs and we're suspicious that he's burning rubbish too. We've already had to report him for burning sheets of thick plastic on the edge of our boundary close to our vents.

@PissedOffNeighbour22 we have a wood burner and I'd be massively pissed off by this as well. We only burn kiln dried logs and I wouldn't dream of burning crap even though the logs cost a fortune.

Think your going to see a lot more threads like this this year, energy prices are through the roof and people will burn anything they can to try and keep warm.

I think this is an issue when people add wood burners to more modern houses without proper chimneys. I live in an old Victorian house with massive chimneys, they’re like 15ft high. You can’t smell my log burner. Saying that I only burn mainly kiln dried wood with a small amount of well seasoned wood.

@QuebecBagnet yes these are modern houses, without chimneys. They added the chimney out the side of their room essentially, but it’s at the height, or only slightly taller, than the bedroom windows of the houses. I can imagine their own house must stink, but they perhaps don’t smell it.

I would definitely talk to them and if no luck to the council about raising the height/length of the flue. Seems crazy that stench pipes height are mandated by planning rules,,,,,maybe flues are too and they aren’t abiding to regulations?

I've been thinking the same - bound to be an issue this year.

We have neighbours behind with a wood burner and they seem to burn any bit of wood they can get their hands on which they spend all weekend sawing and chopping up 🙄

From experience, sometimes when it's quite windy it soon takes the smoke , but when their is no wind ect, it's a pickle.

The wood burner needs to be fitted to certain standards and the chimney needs to be tall enough to prevent smoke from blowing into others' houses. I live semi-rurally and we have lots of them and you can sometimes see the smoke but not smell it. That would indicate his stove hasn't been properly fitted or that he's burning rubbish.

I'd call the Environmental Health department at your local council and report it. If you can take a video of the smoke billowing around that might help. A lot of LAs are tightening up on pollution caused by wood or multi-fuel burners. Good luck.

We have a log burner. I would laugh in your face if you were my neighbour and tell you to get a grip.

And no, I wouldn’t reduce my usage for you. Usually from October - January we have it on most nights.

18,000 complaints last year. I imagine LAs will start issuing more fines to raise money.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/14/english-councils-issue-only-19-fines-for-wood-smoke-despite-18000-complaints

Our log burner releases minimal smoke there's no way it would smoke out someone's house! They must be using crap to burn it.

Maybe you could offer to pay their central heating bill?

Phone your local council planning and or building regulations department and explain they have a wood burning flue in close proximity to bedroom windows which is causing an immediate and urgent health and fire risk. The location of the flue extract doesn’t sound right at all.

You could laugh all you want but the law on statutory nuisance is clear. You could be forced to stop burning if it was a stat nuisance.
I could report my neighbour and I've been tempted. Her burner is located in a single storey extension so if my bedroom window is open I get a room full of smoke.
I haven't reported it because in the winter I have my windows closed and generally she's lovely. The temptation to report was when she lit the fucking thing in July.

@Northernsoullover Report away 🤷‍♀️ I won’t stop using it, fine or no fine.

@YellowTreeHouse charming.

The smell would be enough to be a statutory nuisance. Those of you with wood burners please be considerate as an abatement notice would mean you could never light them and that would be really shit. I do love a word burner but the thought of a neighbour complaint stops me getting one.

Why when it's so cold do you even have a window open! It does sound like the flue isn't high enough, ours is at roof height but if it's really still and we all have them lit at the same time you can vaguely smell it on the estate. Maybe ask them if they are having issues, if it hasn't been cleaned it will smell more.....you've tempted me to get the other half to light ours now.

Fuck around and find out 🤷‍♂️ criminal record and thousands of pounds in fines. I know who'd be laughing and it wouldn't be you 😂